In order to consolidate our ministries of Discalced Carmelite Friars in the Western Province, we had to close our foundation in the Pacific Northwest. However, we have been blessed to strengthen our other communities, including the Carmelite House of Prayer in Oakville CA. We thank you for the support of your prayers and financial contributions for the Carmelite Institute of Spirituality! Over the past 40 years, the friars at the Carmelite Institute of Spirituality have done parish missions, retreats, Days of Recollection and have given spiritual guidance for many people seeking to grow closer to God. One new opportunity that came from this move is that we are now offering a place to make silent retreats in the heart of Napa Valley in California. If you would like to support ministries at the Carmelite House of Prayer or are interested in scheduling a retreat, feel free to visit the Carmelite House of Prayer website to learn more at: https://www.oakvillecarmelites.com

“The Feast of the visitation commemorates Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth, the sanctification of John the Baptist in his mother’s womb, and the occasion on which the Blessed Virgin uttered her hymn of thanksgiving, the Magnificat. The feast was instituted in 1389 by Urban VI to obtain the end of the Western schism.

In this mystery of Our Lady’s life God wish to show us that Mary is an instrument and means by which He imparts to us His graces. She is truly interested in our sanctification and salvation.

We should admire the consideration Mary showed for Elizabeth. Our heavenly mother is our model in carrying out the second great commandment of love. Through her intercession we should ask Jesus for the graces we need, especially that of being kind to our neighbor.

Prayer

Mary, Mother of God, your love is strikingly shown forth in the Visitation. When you learned from the angel that your cousin Elizabeth was with child and needed your help, you set out to care for her. Neither your long absence from home, nor the inconvenience of a difficult and dangerous journey to the mountain country, kept you from making this mission of love. You thought only of the good you could do in Elizabeth’s home. Your sincere love made you hasten to be of service. As you entered the house of Zechariah and greeted your aged cousin, you offered kind words of comfort and congratulations. You lovingly served her till you saw her happily delivered of the child of promise with which God has blessed her.

How humble you were! Though you were the mother of the Most High, you wanted to become the nurse of Elizabeth and the infant John. Though declared blessed among women, you considered yourself the servant of two of God’s beloved children.

Help me to strive to imitate your wonderful charity by aiding those who are in need, by sympathizing with those who are afflicted, by opening my heart and applying my hands to relieve every form of distress. Give me love like yours, which recognizes in every human being a brother or sister in Jesus Christ, to be treated with respect and tenderness and to be aided according to the measure of my power. Teach me that the test of my following of your Divine Son is practical charity. Help me, above all, so that by my good example I may enrich and ennoble every human being whose life I touch.

May the thought of your tenderness and love increase my confidence in you and make me look up to you in all the dangers that surround me in life. I am sure that you, who are all powerful as my advocate, will not desert me but will bring to my poor soul grace and sanctification.” Amen!

–Written by Fr. Lawrence Lovasik in Mary My Hope

With the Feast of St Therese of Lisieux on October 1st, it is well-timed to reflect on the spiritual childhood of St Therese. Being childlike involves certain characteristics. Among these are confident trust and knowing unconditional love. Knowing unconditional love is very important and leads to that confident trust we want to have in God. However, St Therese’s cultural milieu had a strong emphasis on God’s justice and a rigorous adherence to the rules. This culture contributed to her struggle for holiness and perfection. In some way, we all struggle to some degree with these things. This is why St Therese is still relevant and continues to speak to us today.

In the gospels, Jesus reaches out to connect with lepers, cripples and those people considered unimportant and insignificant in the eyes of the religious authorities and leaders. Jesus often makes reference to the Kingdom of God and how it belongs to children and all the lowly and the despised people in society. Let the little children come to me, He said, for such does the kingdom of God belong. On the contrary, He had harsh words for the scribes and Pharisees. These people were focused on religious perfection, gaining merit in God’s sight, and ultimately, being justified before God. Today, we still have many of those underlining attitudes ingrained in our psyches. Like us, St Therese aspired for holiness and perfection. She wanted to be a saint. She continued to try, yet came up against the wall of her own “littleness”–her weaknesses, limitations, and failures. Her frail humanity weighed her down. But instead of being discouraged, she continually turned to God in prayer. And thus she writes in her autobiography, Story of a Soul:

“I said to myself: God cannot inspire unrealizable desires. I can, in spite of my littleness, aspire to holiness. It is impossible for me to grow up, and so I must bear with myself such as I am with all my imperfections. But I want to seek out a means of going to heaven by a little way, a way that is very straight, very short, and totally new. We are now living in an age of inventions, and we no longer have to take the trouble of climbing stairs, for, in the homes of the rich, an elevator has replaced these very successfully. I wanted to find an elevator that would raise me to Jesus, for I am too small to climb the rough stairway of perfection.”

From this passage, St. Therese began to develop her “little way” of being a child of God. With childlike trust and confidence, she threw herself in the arms of Jesus. The photograph below is what this childlike confidence and trust might look like. The girl on the big rock is ready to jump off knowing that her father will catch her in his arms. She loves this experience and it is like the bliss and joy of heaven for her to be able to leap off the rock knowing that her father will be there to catch her. This pure confidence and trust of a child is the essence of what the spiritual childhood of St Therese is all about. Maybe we can reflect and pray with the image? How many times have we been on a rock, figuratively speaking? Do we stay stuck on the rock in fear and worry, or do we find the joy and bliss of leaping into the arms of God our Father.

This is the kind of trusting abandonment that Jesus asks of us. Unless we have that childlike trust to jump off that rock, we will not enter into the heavenly bliss that Jesus desires us to experience even in this life. This trusting abandonment means turning away from the mentality that our justification rests upon our own shoulders. It is a turning away from the denial of our own frailties and limitations. We need to become like little children who trust in the unconditional love of God. St Therese discovered that her littleness was the very source and foundation of her relationship with God, not a hindrance to it. God’s mercy is always there for us, and is found in the midst of our struggles. We need only to turn to God with all our weaknesses to receive His unconditional love and mercy. This is what St Therese came to know and experience in her struggle for holiness. Let us pray that we can follow in her footsteps.